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 to learn that the opal had been found, and that he could probably claim it without a reward. He then took up the story of his quest where his sister had left it.

"I founded my whole hope of finding the thing on what I had heard of Ptolemy, the negro. I knew he was brave and clever and faithful. I always put this murder with the story of the Sancy diamond, which I suppose you know. Baron Sancy, you remember, when told that the messenger who was carrying the celebrated gem had been killed, said, 'Never mind, the Sancy diamond is not lost!' He sent men to disinter the body of the messenger, and found the stone in the stomach of the corpse of his faithful retainer. That's something the way I reasoned it out. It was a wild-goose chase; but I succeeded marvelously. I discovered the place where the attack on my grandfather had been made; I found the very adobe ruin where he had made the last stand. Some of the old people there remembered the story, how my grandfather had been shot first, and how Ptolemy, defending the wooden door, had his hand chopped off with an ax before the brigands could enter. But no one had heard of any precious stone or other valuable thing that would account for the legend, though everybody in Chihuahua knew the story of the 'cigarettes of Chiapas'.

"Well, it took a month to locate the grave; but, after disinterring several coffins, I found one larger than usual, decayed almost to paper. And when I opened it—which was easy, it was so rotten—there, in the skull, between the upper and lower jaw-bone, was a fire opal as big as the end of my thumb! It was the 'Luck of the Merringtons,' I was sure, if for no other reason because, from that time till it was snatched out of my